habitually probing generalist

29 January is the 5th anniversary of my public blogging. I had a Bloglines private blog for about 9 days before I got fed up with its lack of capabilities. That 1st proto-blog was called In My Secret Life… via Leonard Cohen.

The 1st public-facing blog debuted on 29 January 2005 at bookmark.typepad.com and was called …the thoughts are broken…, which is from Ripple by the Grateful Dead. This would have been the beginning of my 2nd full semester of library school.

On 20 July 2006 I flipped the switch on Off the Mark on my own domain and hosted by LISHost after some tribulations with Typepad over many months. The story of the name is at that post.

On 19 July 2009 I again changed the name of the blog; reasons listed at the post. It is now known as habitually probing generalist.

I will make no promises as to what will or will not happen on this blog in the future. I have not been writing much for quite a while now—some of the reasons are interspersed in posts over the last 18 months or so—and I do not know if or when I will pick up the virtual pen again or how frequently. But I do appreciate having this space as an outlet and knowing that thanks to RSS anyone who truly cares what I might have to say can simply wait on that eventuality to arrive.

Thanks to all who have been here with me any of this time. Hopefully you’ll see me around here some more and I certainly hope to see you (and your feedback/comments/critiques/cries of BS/etc.).

In my recent Books Read in 2009 post I talked a bit about what I read last yea and a few other aspects of reading. In this post I want to touch on a few other issues, some of which are orthogonal ways of looking at what I read last year; so partially an update, partially new.

Public domain

January 1st was Public Domain Day [and when I started on writing some of what became this post].

In honor of the public domain, and Public Domain Day, I intend to read some William Butler Yeats whose stuff enters public domain this year. Look around the Public Domain Day site:“To celebrate the role of the public domain in our societies” and check out the list of authors (probably) entering public domain this year (Sigmund Freud, for instance, and Yeats). All of the listed authors have links to their Wikipedia pages (or the several I checked anyway. All seem to be links. Ergo.)

I have never intentionally read any Yeats so I am looking forward to it. For me, one of the big boons of reading ebooks on my Touch [I use Stanza and ePub files] is the number of public domain titles I am reading. Much of it I have been aware of, for assorted reasons, for much of my life but I never got to it. Although I have purchased a very few ebooks I have not made the transition to buying ebooks. Despite the advantages of ebooks—I do believe there are some (and that I’ve said so on this blog)—the limited capabilities of today’s hardware and software, combined with the fact that I am mostly reading stuff from free sources, means that I still buy print books. But the technology and the social/legal situation means that (currently) I get to focus on the stuff now free. I like that.

Based on my Books Read in 2009 post (and feedbooks) I read 28 public domain books last year. That is 35% of my entire reading. Only one (ah, 1.5) of those was in print: Siddhartha and half of Lord Jim. That means that 96% of my public domain reading (a solid 33% of all reading) was done on my Touch. [Only 2 of the total ebooks read were not in the public domain for the US, at least according to feedbooks.]

Fiction vs. Nonfiction

I didn’t even think of this until I saw Jessamyn West’s list a couple days after mine. When I got home I decided to sketch it out, both overall and for ebooks, and finshed vs. not finished.  Jessamyn also looks at ratio of male-to-female authors (amongst a few other looks) and that does not serve any interestof mine. Data’s there, count for yourself if you are.

Overall (print/ebooks)

• Finished: 44 Fiction, 39 Nonfiction.
• Unfinished: 2 Fiction, 5 Nonfiction.

So 53% of total finished was fiction; 47% nonfiction. Pretty even split and appropriate, for now. If you throw in the unfinished books on both sides it comes closer to even (51/49%)

Ebooks

• Finished: 24 Fiction, 4 Nonfiction
• Unfinished: 1 each

86% of the finished ebooks were fiction; 14% nonfiction. Goes to 83/17% if add in one each unfinished, except the fiction gains it back since it is still being read; Emerson’s essays were given up completely.

Goodreads

As of 4 January I have joined Goodreads. Both Jenny and Angel asked me in the comments of the book post why I’m not on Goodreads. I’d never discovered a need, primarily. Thus never had an account and did not know what it is exactly.

Books—most in one of a couple different ways—get tracked in a lot of places by me. Amazon for some things I want; Google doc of acquisitions (chronological); LibraryThing as, primarily, a catalog for me of mostly stuff I own (~99%),  I do little of the social there; Zotero for things I have read, regardless of source; wiki for what read and dates. What else is left?

Well. I haven’t been happy with the amount of engagement I’ve given many of these books (or articles) after I have finished reading them, in a long time. I should write more reviews, even mini-reviews, and other commentary on what I have read. Will this help?

One thing I do not like already is that I cannot find where to find someone I know who uses it so I can add them as a friend. The add friends function seems to really want me to give them my Gmail contacts, my facebook friends, etc. I am not cool with that.

Griped about it on twitter and a friend reached out and friended me. Many of her Goodreads friends are my friends too. But I still do not know how to find and friend Angel. Jenny was found in the previous manner.

I sure wish I could figure out how to simply get a csv file out of a Zotero collection. Might play with putting the last 3 years books read in if I could. I do not want to import my whole LibraryThing database. Wonder can I just export an LT collection? Need to look into that. And. Ebook metadata/editions remains a problem and even adds a new twist. Anyway ….

No promises but I am going to give it a try.

A new year in reading

No idea what 2010 will bring for me in reading. But I am looking forward to whatever it is. Am already reading some Wendell Berry poetry and Kundera on the novel.

Here’s to a great year of reading for everyone!

Most of these are new to me, but a few are venerable classics that I got to share with Sara for the first time [Stop Making Sense] or that we got to see together in the theater [The Shining]. Many movies I watched are not on this list because I have seen them before. As Sara pointed out, I’m not entirely consistent with my including or not.  Le sigh. [Not that I had any delusions that I was, mind you. And after a discussion on the way to the Urbana Free Library (UFL) today it seems we are recording them for somewhat orthogonal reasons. But I may begin leaning her way. The things I wanted to "count/analyze" would be available via her more elaborate bookkeeping, amongst others.]

It appears I listed 5 movies I have seen before that I saw with Sara in some venue this past year. One of these [Woodstock] was from Ebertfest.

Twelve movies were seen at Ebertfest in April. We have our festival passes ordered for this coming year, too.

An additional 14 were seen on the big screen, for a total of 26 in the theater.

A few (3-4) were seen at the IMC and at the Krannert Art Museum on assorted mid-sized screens (DVD projection generally) [KAM link has been down for several days].

The rest were on DVD via purchase, That’s Rentertainment, Urbana Free Library, Netflix, or on Netflix streaming, oh, and one or two from our own Undergraduate Library; I need to think of them more often.

Total looks like 79 movies. Again, what exactly does this number represent? Even I am hard pressed to accurately say. Nonetheless, the movies I generally saw for the first time in 2009.

January 2009

Stop Making Sense – 1st time for Sara
Unrepeatable – Eddie Izzard
Persepolis
War of the Worlds (1953)
War of the Worlds (Tom Cruise)
Dedication
The Lady Vanishes (1938 Hitchcock)
The Man Who Would Be King (1975 Connery/Caine/Plummer – Kipling)

February

Sunset Boulevard (at Krannert Art Museum)
Firedancing (2001 by Jimi Jones) (IMC Film Fest with Sara & Tim & Tracy)
Proceed and Be Bold (2008 by Laura Zinger about Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr., letterpress printer) (IMC Film Fest with Sara & Tim & Tracy)
Puccinni for Beginners

March

Watchmen (Savoy)
The Tiger and the Snow – 1st time for Sara [link]

April

Doctor Who: The Five Doctors
Bobby

Ebertfest 22-26 April (at The Virginia Theatre )
22 Apr
Woodstock

23 Apr
My Winnipeg
Chop Shop
Trouble the Water

24 Apr
Begging Naked
The Last Command
Frozen River

25 Apr
The Fall
Sita Sings the Blues
Nothing But the Truth
Let the Right One In

26 Apr
Baraka

May

Wolverine (With Sara & Jess at Savoy)
Hairspray (orig. 1988) (at IMC)
Star Trek (at Savoy)
Northanger Abbey (2007)
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

June

Invasion of the Bee Girls
Unconscious (Sp)
Synecdoche, New York (That’s Rentertainment)

July

Fist of the Warrior
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (Savoy)
Moon (Boardman’s)

August

Beautiful People (from UGL)
A Collection of 2005 Academy Award Nominated Short Films (from UFL)
Charlie Wilson’s War (from UFL)
Incubus (1965 William Shatner in Esperanto)
Red Hot + Blue

September

500 Days of Summer (Savoy)

October

She Wolves of the Wasteland
Miss Potter (from UFL)
Quantum of Solace (from UFL)
History Boys
The Shining  (at The Virginia)
Were the World Mine
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, A Scandal in Bohemia #1 [streaming!!]
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Dancing Men #2
Where the Wild Things Are (at Savoy)

November

Getting Home / Luo Ye Gui Gen (China – Global Lens – at The Virginia)
Mutum (Brazil – Global Lens – at The Virginia)
shrink (2009 – Kevin Spacey)
Il Mare (Korean)
2012 (at Savoy)
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Naval Treaty #3
My Blueberry Nights (Norah Jones)
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Solitary Cyclist #4
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Crooked Man #5

December

My Time Will Come / Cuando Me Toque A Mi  (Ecuador – Global Lens – at The Virginia)
Greenfingers
Jellyfish (Israel)
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Speckled Band #6
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Blue Carbuncle #7
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Copper Beeches #8
Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist (from UFL)
Man of Flowers (1983 Aussie / from UFL)
City of Embers
Avatar 3D (at Savoy)
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Greek Interpreter #9 (with Charles Gray)

Chinese Food & Movie Day (aka Christmas Day)
Sherlock Homes (at Savoy with Ellen & Lori)
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Norwood Builder #10

My Fair Lady (from UFL)
Twelfth Night (2003)
Moonlighting (pilot – from UFL)
The Brothers Bloom
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939 Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Ida Lupino)
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Resident Patient #11

Some good, some bad. A few great. Wondering what’s in store for 2010? It’ll be a couple more months before the lineup for Ebertfest 2010 is announced (March usually). Can hardly wait!

Not sure what any of this means, or why, it is, or if, of importance. Much can be seen of my book reading habits over the last 3 years at this blog [see links at end of post]. According to previous posts, it looks like another banner year in the Lindner household for book reading. No doubt, article reading was even further reduced; perhaps I need a different ratio; slip a few more articles back in.

Numbers

Numbers, in the real world, are often hard. Overlapping and/or conflicting categories, different reasons for not finishing something, one read 1st half on a Touch and back half in a Penguin paperback (Conrad, Lord Jim), …. Nonetheless, one must try:

90 books total

9 unfinished (all reasons)

81 books read (all formats)

3-4 unfinished are still being read (2 actively: Chan and Mitchell; Gaskell)

Of these totals, the ebooks follow:

31 total

1 given up on (Emerson)

1 ebook/print (Conrad)

1 still reading (Gaskell)

29 ebooks read

So, ebooks made up 29/81 (~36%) of my book reading this year. Some of them being short stories, or short collections, probably helped. Hmmm. I am OK with this.

There is some color-coding and other data exposed, and, in some cases, some commentary. The commentary is down a notch let’s say and, sadly, leave it at that. Dates of reading where known are included.

The titles of books not finished are in red. An “edition statement” is present for all ebooks and says ebook (type) in a sort of pink.

“Professional development” in a comment generally implies that I read it at work on breaks (notice lengthy reading times).

Some previous commentary on a few of the ebook titles read [15, 17-19 & 45], and commentary on my experience reading ebooks on an Apple Touch, can be found in these earlier posts re ebook reading from 2009:

• My personal journey into ebooks [See entries below: 15 and 17-19]
• Update: My personal journey into ebooks [See entry below: 45]

Hopefully there is COinS metadata for all 91 entries; Zotero for the win!

So, without further ado:

Books Read in 2009

1. Steven Black, Serials in Libraries: Issues and Practices (Westport, Conn: Libraries Unlimited, 2006). Read: 5 Dec 2008-2 Feb 2009. Professional development.
2. Walt Crawford, The Liblog Landscape, 2007-2008 : a Lateral Look (Mountain View, Calif.: Cites & Insights Book, 2009). Read: mid-Dec 2008-6 Jan 2009
3. Wendell Berry, The Long-legged House, 1st ed. (Washington DC ;[Berkeley Calif.]: Shoemaker & Hoard ; Distributed by Publishers Group West, 2004). Read: 29 Dec 2008-8 Jan 2009
4. Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha : an Indian tale (New York N.Y.: Penguin Books, 1999). Read: 1 Jan / 10 April-6 May 2009
5. Robert Butler, Intercourse : Stories (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2008). Read: 3-4 Jan 2009. See also: Some things seen around the internet lately
6. Jacques. Ellul, A Critique of the New Commonplaces (New York: Knopf, 1968). Read: 3 Jan-15 March 2009. Read about half, all in all. Counting it read. Cited by David Bade in a talk he gave to the UIUC ASIS&T Student Chapter about 2 years ago.
7. Christopher Hutton, Abstraction and Instance: The Type-Token Relation in Linguistic Theory, 1st ed., Language & communication library v. 11 (Oxford [England]: Pergamon Press, 1990). Read: 4 Jan-?? 2009. For my CAS interests. Difficult.
8. Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems. Volume Two (Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 2005). Read: 9-10 Jan 2009. Wow! Very earthy, natural, attentive. Nice to have read it on the heels of Berry.
9. Mary Oliver, Red Bird : Poems (Boston: Beacon Press, 2008). Read: 10 Jan 2009
10. Paul Woodruff, Reverence : Renewing a Forgotten Virtue (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2002). Read: 11-23 Jan 2009. I had begun a post on the amazing synchronicity and overlap between, and their effect on me of, Berry, Oliver and Woodruff. Sadly, somewhere along the way, that fell through; like so many other attempted blog posts this past year. Even if it didn’t get posted, I sure wish I had written it for myself.
11. Pablo Neruda, Residence on Earth = Residencia en la tierra, trans. Donald D. Walsh, New Directions paperbook 992 (New York NY: New Directions, 2004). Read: 16 Jan- 2009. Have not yet finished this. Spent several months at it slowly but the last fair bit is about war and destruction. I could only take so much, beautiful as it may be, with my son deployed to Iraq.
12. George Steiner, Grammars of Creation: Originating in the Gifford Lectures for 1990 (New Haven [Conn.]: Yale University Press, 2001). Read: 26 Jan-1 March 2009. This was an extremely interesting book, although hard to follow sometimes. I had intended to read more Steiner after this but haven’t gotten to it yet.
13. Wendell Berry, The Mad Farmer Poems ([New York]: Counterpoint Press, 2008). Read: 28 Jan 2009. This was a gift from Sara that she brought me from her ALA Midwinter trip.
14. J. H Bowman, Essential Dewey (London: Facet Pub, 2005). Read: 2-16 Feb 2009. Professional development.
15. Rachel Kramer Bussel, ed., The Lust Chronicles Anthology, ebook (pdf). (Beverly, MA: Ravenous Romance), http://www.ravenousromance.com/the-lust-chronicles/the-lust-chronicles-anthology.php. Read: 5-13 Feb 2009
16. Pablo Neruda, Ode to Typography = Oda a la tipografía, trans. Enrique Sacerio-Garí (Torrance, Calif.: Labyrinth Editions, 1977). Read: 9 Feb 2009 in Illinois State University Milner Library Special Collections. [Issued in a portfolio. "One hundred copies printed." No. 26. "This book was printed on Japanese Masa and Ragston papers at Yale University School of Art using a Vandercook proof press. This book was designed & produced by Richard Bigus, Labyrinth Editions ..."--Colophon. "We have translated the ode not only into English but also into the typographical space it celebrates. The "Ode to Typography" is Neruda's song to a world of words as it is created under the ancient fingers of a masterful hand. Typography is also poetry. In this book printer Richard Bigus was the poet."--Translator's note. Letterpress printed. Bound in Japanese side-sewn style using linen thread. Covers created from artist-made marbled paper.]
17. Edgar Allan Poe, Bon-Bon, ebook (epub)., 1832, http://feedbooks.com/book/760. Read: 15 Feb 2009
18. D. H. Lawrence, Amores : Poems, ebook (epub)., http://www.munseys.com/book/24967/Amores. Read: 16-17 Feb 2009. Enjoyed quite a few of these.
19. Christina Rosetti, Poems [New Poems by Christina Rosetti: Hitherto Unpublished or Uncollected], ebook (epub)., http://www.munseys.com/book/22140/Poems. Read: 18 Feb-7 March 2009. A bit much sometimes, especially when she’s on about religion, but I enjoyed quite a few.
20. Virginia Tufte, Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style (Cheshire, Conn: Graphics Press LLC, 2006). Read: 1 March-. Gave up fairly quickly as did not feel prepared for it in some way. Hope to get back to it someday.
21. P. K. Page, Cry Ararat! Poems New and Selected (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1967). Read: 2-5 March 2009. Quite enjoyed these.
22. Leonard Smith, Chaos : a Very Short Introduction, Very short introductions 159 (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2004). 6 March-27 April 2009. I really appreciated how it kept hammering away on the differences between models and reality; numbers in our mathematical models, the numbers we observe when taking measurements in the world, & the numbers inside a digital computer; and models, computer implementations of our models, and the real world.
23. H. G. Wells, Tales of Space and Time, ebook (epub)., 1900, http://www.feedbooks.com/book/3469. Read: 11-20 March 2009. I quite enjoyed these stories. Makes an excellent read on a mobile device.
24. P. K. Page, Evening Dance of the Grey Flies (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1981). Read: 14-15 March 2009. Enjoyed these also. Have a couple more books of Page’s poetry to read.
25. Alex Rose, The Musical Illusionist : and Other Tales (Brooklyn N.Y.: Hotel St. George Press, 2007). Read: 18 March-3 April 2009. Read this at Sara’s. Was pretty good, all in all, but I seriously longed for some sort of pointers (citations/references) to that which was based on fact. I guess there is just too much admixture of reality and make believe in this for me.
26. Lisa Lane, The Darkness and the Night : Blood and Coffee, ebook (epub)., A Ravenous Romance™ Fantastica™ Original Publication (Beverly, MA: Ravenous Romance, 2009), http://www.ravenousromance.com. Read: 20-25 March 2009
27. Barrett Watten, Conduit (San Francisco: GAZ, 1988). Read: 22-24 March 2009. Cited by Ron Day, “The “Conduit Metaphor” and the Nature and Politics of Information Studies” JASIST 51(9) p. 808. Although I was really looking forward to this, I didn’t quite get it. Mostly a series of disconnected thoughts, statements, etc. Maybe I’m just not bright or hip enough to get it.
28. H. G. Wells, The Time Machine, ebook (epub)., 1895, http://feedbooks.com/book/32. Read: 25-28 March 2009. Enjoyed it but also noticed a few issues that with a bit of probing around academically I discovered have been commented on by Wells scholars. Tad bit pleased with myself for that.
29. Umberto Eco, Serendipities : Language & Lunacy, trans. William Weaver, Italian Academy lectures (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998). Read: 27-29 March 2009. Enjoyed this much better than the longer book for which it is the leftover bits (see Eco below).
30. Roy Harris, Mindboggling : Preliminaries to a Science of the Mind (Luton: The Pantaneto Press, 2008). Read: 29 March-1 April 2009
31. Charles Wagner, The Simple Life, trans. Mary Louise Hendee, ebook (epub). (New York: Groseet & Dunlap, 1901), http://www.munseys.com/book/25493/Simple_Life,_The. Read: 30 March-9 April 2009. Quite excellent; highly recommended.
32. Per Linell, The Written Language Bias in Linguistics: Its Nature, Origins and Transformations, Routledge advances in communication and linguistic theory 5 (London: Routledge, 2005). Read: 2-15 April 2009. A most excellent book that I hope to revisit someday; preferably with my own copy.
33. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-reliance and Other Essays, ed. Edna H. L. Turpin, ebook (epub)., Merrill’s English texts (New York: Charles E. Merrill, 1907), http://www.munseys.com/book/17951/Essays. Read: 9-21 April 2009. Only read Intro and four essays (through Friendship) before giving up. I found Emerson practically incoherent and self-contradictory. I wanted to like and respect these essays more but simply could not. May give them another chance in another decade or so.
34. Ronald Gross, Peak Learning : How to Create Your Own Lifelong Education Program for Personal Enlightenment and Professional Success, Rev. ed. (New York: J.P. Tarcher/Putnam, 1999). Read: 12 April-. Am supposedly still reading this but haven’t been back to it in a while unfortunately.
35. Umberto Eco, The Search for the Perfect Language, trans. James Fentress, The making of Europe (Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1997). Read: 15 April-19 May 2009. Of some value but highly disappointing. The outtakes, which comprise Serendipities, make for a better read.
36. John Clarke, Libraries in the Medieval and Renaissance periods. The Rede lecture delivered June 13, 1894., ebook (epub). (Cambridge [Eng.]: Macmillan and Bowes), http://www.bookglutton.com/detail/Clark/Libraries+in+the+Medieval+and+Renaissance+Periods/352.html. Read: 22-24 April 2009. This was an excellent lecture. The only drawback of the ebook version was that all but one image was missing.
37. Catherine Belsey, Poststructuralism: A Very Short Introduction, Very short introductions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). Read: 28-30 April 2009
38. John Miedema, Slow Reading (Duluth Minn.: Litwin Books, 2009). Read: 29 April-3 May 2009. Worth reading. Short with an easy style. [The LibraryThing reviewers who called this overly academic in their reviews are nuts.] I started on a review of this but didn’t get far due to assorted interruptions. Another one that I wish I had at least gotten down for myself.
39. Tom McArthur, Worlds of Reference: Lexicography, Learning, and Language from the Clay Tablet to the Computer (Cambridge [Cambridgeshire]: Cambridge University Press, 1986). Read: 2 May-30 June 2009. Ordered my own copy from amazon on the 2nd day of reading. This is an excellent book, especially appropriate for all LIS folks. Should be required reading for all LIS & book history folks.
40. Irving Singer, Sex: A Philosophical Primer ; with New Material on Same-Sex Marriage, Expanded ed. (Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004). Read: 4-7 May 2009
41. Mary Midgley, Wisdom, Information, and Wonder: What is Knowledge For? / (London: Routledge, 1991). Read: 9 May / 30 June-4 Aug 2009. Restarted 30 Jun with my own copy. A most excellent book which I hope to revisit on occasion. Recommended by David Bade.
42. Sheila S Intner and Peggy Johnson, Fundamentals of Technical Services Management, ALA fundamentals series (Chicago: American Library Association, 2008). Read: ?? May-11 Sep 2009. Professional development.
43. Toni Weller, Information History : an Introduction : Exploring an Emergent Field (Oxford: Chandos Publishing, 2008). Read: 11-16 May 2009. OK but I was hoping for something more.
44. Nick Baylis, The Rough Guide to Happiness: Practical Steps for All-round Well-being, Rough guides (New York: Rough Guides, 2009). Read: 18 May-. Finished most of this. Free from LibraryThing via their monthly publisher review copy program.
45. Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, ebook (epub). (Project Gutenberg, 1997), http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/844. Read: 29-30 June 2009. My 1st Wilde and I enjoyed it immensely.
46. Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book (ebook (epub), 1894), http://www.feedbooks.com/book/162. Read: 1-6 July 2009. Quite enjoyed this and makes a fine ebook read.
47. Rafael Sabatini, Captain Blood, ebook (epub)., 1922, http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2158. Read: 6-11 July 2009. Awesome swashbuckling goodness!
48. Aristophanes, Clouds, trans. William James Hickie, ebook (epub)., 2001, http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2562. Read: ?12-16 July 2009. Seriously underwhelmed. Need a good print edition with lots of foot/endnotes fleshing out the huge amount of missing context.
49. John Dewey, Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education, ebook (epub)., http://www.bookglutton.com/detail/John+Dewey/Democracy+and+Education+an+Introduction+to+the+Philosophy+of+Education/400.html. Read: 18 July-22 Sep. My 1st long nonfiction work read on the Touch. It went OK but this, for me, would have been better in print.
50. Wendell Berry, Whitefoot: A Story from the Center of the World (Berkeley, Calif: Counterpoint Press, 2009). Read: 1-2 Aug 2009. Excellent for all ages! Gift from Sara that she brought me from ALA.
51. Anne Carson and Center for Hellenic Studies (Washington, D.C.), Eros the Bittersweet: An Essay (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1986). Read: 5-11 Aug. Most excellent! Acquired my own print copy shortly after finishing it. Will definitely be revisiting this.
52. Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, trans. Maria Jolas, Beacon paperbacks 330 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969). Read: 12-16 Aug. Quit at pg. 16 because I just could not get into it. Maybe someday. The main text looked like it was better than the introduction but that was where the author was setting out what he had tried to do and placing the work in the context of his subsequent work [English translation came years after the original].
53. Susie Bright, Susie Bright’s Sexwise: America’s Favorite X-Rated Intellectual Does Dan Quayle, Catharine MacKinnon, Stephen King, Camille Paglia, Nicholson Baker, Madonna, the Black Panthers, and the GOP–, 1st ed. (Pittsburg, Pa: Cleis Press, 1995). Read: 16-19 Aug 2009. Saw this on the quick sort shelf waiting to be reshelved. What can I say? A large font Sexwise down the spine caught my eye.
54. Laurie Bauer and Peter Trudgill, eds., Language Myths (New York N.Y.: Penguin Books, 1998). Read: 20-28 Aug 2009. Short overviews of lots of issues in linguistics and language studies. Generally good quality throughout that makes for a good introduction.
55. Birger Hjørland, Information Seeking and Subject Representation: An Activity-Theoretical Approach to Information Science, New directions in information management 34 (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1997). Read: 28 Aug-11 Oct 2009. This time got through the whole thing.
56. Robert Fiengo and Robert May, De Lingua Belief (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2006). Read: 29 May-. Supposedly still reading this but I think I’ve given up on it. While they are challenging the received norm in philosophy of language they are doing so on a very fine point. I agree that theirs is a valid critique but I also feel that it is spurious and does not begin to go far enough; that is, to question the whole of the received norm of philosophy of language.
57. Marina Orlova, Hot for Words: Answers to All Your Burning Questions About Words and Their Meanings, 1st ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 2009). Read: 31 Aug-1 Sep 2009. What can I say? This little tramp caught my eye on the new book shelf at Urbana Free (my public). Really not worth the effort; which isn’t much, mind you. Etymology of the worst kind. And by a[n intentionally] tarted up blond.
58. Alan Moore, Lost Girls (Atlanta: Top Shelf Productions, 2006). Read: Vol. 1 sometime in Aug. perhaps; vol. 2 7-8 Sep; vol. 3 8 Sep 2009
59. Paul Muldoon, Horse Latitudes, 1st ed. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006). Read: 9- 24 Sep 2009. Another poet tried. Another that didn’t particularly speak to me.
60. Owen Barfield, Speaker’s Meaning, 1st ed. (Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press, 1967). Read: 13-15 Sep 2009. Enjoyed.
61. Owen Barfield, The Rediscovery of Meaning, and Other Essays, 1st ed. (Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press, 1977). 15 Sep-15 Nov 2009. Enjoyed most of these essays. Would like to revisit this with my own copy someday.
62. Arika Okrent, In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build a Perfect Language, 1st ed. (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2009). Read 20-24 Sep 2009. A popularization of some of the types of invented languages discussed by Eco, amongst others, but far more readable and interesting.
63. Karel Čapek, R.U.R., ebook (epub)., 1921, http://feedbooks.com/book/4199. Read 23-25 Sep 2009. I have been filling in the name of this story in crosswords for decades so I figured it was time to read it. I was not disappointed. Another great ebook read.
64. David M. Levy, Scrolling Forward: Making Sense of Documents in the Digital Age, 1st ed. (New York: Arcade, 2001). Read 25 Sep-24 Nov 2009. Pretty good but read at work during breaks so the author’s point was kind of too spread out for me. Instead, I recommend Avatars of the Word [See below].
65. Arthur Conan Doyle, Through the Magic Door, ebook (epub)., 1907, http://feedbooks.com/book/356. Read 28 Sep-5 Oct 2009. Doyle on other books; excellent. Would be easier to (re)consult if printed.
66. Melissa Kwasny, Reading Novalis in Montana, 1st ed. (Minneapolis, Minn: Milkweed Editions, 2009). Read 2-31 Oct 2009. Mentioned positively on a good friend’s blog so I wanted to check it out but these poems just didn’t speak to me. But in a bit of sychronicity, the epigram at the start of Lord Jim is by Novalis.
67. Rafael Sabatini, Casanova’s Alibi, ebook (epub)., 1914, http://www.feedbooks.com/book/3952. Read 5?-10 Oct 2009. Interesting read.
68. Paulo Coelho, The Way of the Bow, ebook (epub)., 2008, http://feedbooks.com/book/3873. Read 10 Oct 2009
69. Kurt Vonnegut, 2 B R 0 2 B, ebook (epub)., 1962, http://www.feedbooks.com/book/912. Read 12 Oct 2009. Quick, fun read.
70. Oscar Wilde, The Canterville Ghost, ebook (epub)., 1887, http://www.feedbooks.com/book/7. Read 12-13? Oct 2009. Hilarious!
71. Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone, ebook (epub)., 1868, http://feedbooks.com/book/3311. Read 12?-19 Oct 2009. Quite good; I highly recommend it. “Widely regarded as the precursor of the modern mystery and suspense novels, ….”
72. Kimberly Zant, Surrender (Lake Park, GA: New Concepts, 2007). Read 20-22 Oct 2009
73. George Eliot, The Lifted Veil, ebook (epub)., 1859, http://www.feedbooks.com/book/4316. Read: 23-24 Oct 2009. Decent enough short story but not classic Eliot.
74. Aldous Huxley, Crome Yellow, ebook (epub). (1921), http://www.feedbooks.com/book/4146. 25-26 Oct 2009
75. Jane Austen, Lady Susan, ebook (epub)., 1794, http://feedbooks.com/book/3922. 22?-30 Oct 2009. Yes, I did read Huxley in the midst of this. It got off to a slow start for me but I went back to it after Huxley. All in all, I’d say it is decent enough. Epistolary novel.
76. Stephen Dunn, Local Visitations: Poems, 1st ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 2003). Read 1-3 Nov 2009. Another poet that really didn’t speak to me.
77. Rafael Sabatini, Scaramouche, ebook (epub)., 1921, http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2168. Read: 2-13 Nov 2009. Good Sabatini; the one he is most known for but I prefer the previous 2 I read more.
78. Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World, ebook (epub)., 1912, http://www.feedbooks.com/book/67. Read 13-14 Nov 2009. Excellent!
79. Max Black, The Importance of Language, Cornell paperbacks (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969). Read: 6/14 Nov 2009. Read on the way to/from ASIST 2009 Annual Meeting; 1st half on planes there, back half on a train home.
80. David Yanor, ed., Lust: Quills Annual Erotic Magazine, vol. 1 (Vancouver: Quill’s Canadian Poetry Magazine, 2004). Read: 14 Nov 2009. I read this on the City of New Orleans train from Chicago to Champaign on the way home from ASIST 2009. I got this from Little Sister’s in Vancouver.
81. George Eliot, Brother Jacob, ebook (epub)., 1860, http://www.feedbooks.com/book/4370. Read: 17-18 Nov 2009. Again, not the best Eliot, but fun and short.
82. Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim, ebook (epub)., 1900, http://feedbooks.com/book/719. Read: 18 Nov-11 Dec 2009. See also entry below. Read just about half on my Touch and then while at the Illini Union bookstore during a 30% off sale I noticed a new Penguin Classics paperback for $7. On sale it was $4.90 so I grabbed it and finished the novel in print and then went back and read the introductory essay by Alan H. Simmons. Print also provided me the glossaries and all the editorial notes. This was an excellent novel. The Novalis epigram, mentioned in the Kwasny entry above, that opens the novel is: “It is certain my conviction gains infinitely, the moment another soul will believe in it.”
83. Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim : a tale, [New ed.] /. (London: Penguin, 1900).
84. James Joseph O’Donnell, Avatars of the Word: From Papyrus to Cyberspace (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1998). Read: 18 Nov-14 Dec 2009. Noticed Dorothea Salo thanking Steve Lawson for recommending this in friendfeed so picked it up. Quite good; recommended.
85. R. L. Trask and Bill Mayblin, Introducing Linguistics, Introducing … (Cambridge [Eng.]: Icon Books / Totem Books, 2000). Read: 29 Nov 2009
86. Duncan Emrich, The Folklore of Weddings and Marriage; the Traditional Beliefs, Customs, Superstitions, Charms, and Omens of Marriage and Marriage Ceremonies (New York: American Heritage Press, 1970). Read: 10 Dec 2009. This was grabbed on a lark when looking for books on alternative wedding vows because it was illustrated by Tomi de Paola.
87. Mary Oliver, American Primitive : Poems, 1st ed. (Boston: Little Brown, 1983). Read: 13 Dec 2009. One of my favorite poets so far.
88. Saki, The Chronicles of Clovis, ebook (epub)., 1911, http://feedbooks.com/book/3401. Read 14-?? Dec 2009. Decidedly wicked and wickedly funny.
89. Wood, James. How Fiction Works. 1st ed. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008. Read 17-30 Dec. Quite enjoyed this.
90. Chan, Lois Mai, and Joan S Mitchell. Dewey Decimal Classification: Principles and Application. 3rd ed. Dublin, Ohio: OCLC, 2003. Read 21 Dec-. Professional development for the new year.
91. Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn. Curious, If True: Strange Tales, ebook (epub)., 1859. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/3335. Read 21 Dec-. Enjoying this so far; 2 out of 5 stories read.

Well, that’s it for 2009. #90 and 91 are still being actively read. A few others will hopefully be continued soon. As to what’s next? I got lots of Mary Oliver, Erotic Poems, Crowley, and a Harris book for Christmas. I also have plenty on the ‘to be read’ shelf among many more. And seeing as I have yet another ‘to be read’ shelf at work, too, … *le sigh*

Metadata issues and the issues of (non)reference for ebooks still sucks. I have begun doing my best to get my ebooks via the Web on the MacBook and then syncing them. When I grab the file from feedbooks, gutenberg, …, I bookmark the page in my delicious account and tag it with ebook. Then I can at least see what the source is claiming for what I believe I got. Has been somewhat helpful but a real pain. Most of the metadata in the CoinS in this post for ebooks comes from my entering a good deal of data from those pages. Very little good structured data in free things often; it is a difficulty.

Oh well. Here’s to reading in 2010!

2007/2008 Books read and earlier 2009 posts re Reading

• Books Read in 2007
• Books read in the 1st half of 2008 (and some)
• Book read in the 2nd half of 2008
• My personal journey into ebooks
• Update: My personal journey into ebooks

In Vancouver, BC for ASIST 2009 Annual Meeting: Thriving on Diversity: Information Opportunities in a Pluralistic World.

Today is the 20th SIG-CR (Classification Research) Workshop: Bridging Worlds, Connecting People: Classification Transcending Boundaries.

1st session, which I’m in now, is titled: Crossing Cultural Boundaries: Indigenous Knowledge Organization. Moderator: Hope Olson. Papers are: Language, Text and Knowledge Organization: One Native American Story by Cheryl Metoyer; and, Martin Nataka’s “Indigenous Standpoint”: Toward a Theoretical Location for Indigenous Knowledge Organization by Ann Doyle. [These are not listed on the website. See link above for SIG-CR for titles of other papers below.]

2nd session will be Crossing Disciplinary Boundaries. Moderator: Barbara Kwasnik. Papers by Szostak & Gnoli, Ali Shiri, and Xiaoli Huang.

3rd session will be Crossing the Boundaries of Convention. Moderator: Corinne Jorgensen. Papers by Amelia Abreu, Kwan Yi, and Gabel and Smiraglia.

4th session will be Crossing System/Searcher Boundaries. Moderator: Dagobert Soergel. Papers by Marianne Lykke-Nielsen, Jens-Erik Mai, and Joseph Tennis.

Seems the paper by Timothy Patrick will not be presented.

There are also a handful of posters, including one by UIUC’s Ingbert FLoyd, Thomas Dousa and Michael Twidale.

Looking forward to seeing a bit of Vancouver and seeing colleagues again. I have already seen 3 of my 4 co-panelists from last year. In fact, they are here at SIG-CR.

When we head home we will be taking the train from Seattle over to Chicago, and then another to Champaign. I am really looking forward to that bit of the trip, too.

Please consider this a sort of thought experiment. And, please, I beg you, do not do this to any one!

Need to either train or assist someone in training themselves to do Slavic/Cyrillic cataloging?

Do NOT:

• dump, without warning, a cataloger of Western European languages into Slavic/Cyrillic cataloging.
• give them, willy-nilly, a complete mixture, randomly assorted, of Slavic languages to catalog.
• give them absolutely no training.
• provide absolutely no feedback.
• give them pre-revolutionary materials so they have additional characters to consider.
• give them materials that need original cataloging.
• give them materials by authors with no authority records.
• expect the work to be done quickly.
• give them translations; especially those from one Slavic language to another.
• forget that the issue is “simply” language and script but that a host of other rules and other knowledge is required.

Now all of these things are not of the same importance, nor do they all need sequenced at the same time. If you are going to provide some honest and quality training and feedback then many of them recede to be of much less importance.

But if you are just going to dump this sort of cataloging on someone and you expect quality results then you had best pay attention to the above list and give them plenty of time to learn on their own. And, if you do dump this kind of work on someone then, except in the rarest of circumstance, you are not qualified to be a supervisor of catalogers.

And here my little thought experiment ends.

Change of blog name

I have changed the name of my blog. Again. This time it should not break any of the Internet nor should you need to change feeds; I hope.

3 years ago tomorrow I moved my blog to Wordpress and renamed it Off the Mark. This was after a few years of blogging at Typepad under the name …the thought are broken…. I had put out a call for suggestions and for slightly different reasons both Walt Crawford and Richard Urban recommended Off the Mark. For those and other reasons I liked it. But over time various (possible) connotations have been bugging me. I was certainly aware of them then but I dismissed them, at least in my own mind.

A few months after renaming my blog I read an article for a class and my tagline was born. That tagline is now being promoted to the name of my blog. Henceforth, this space is to be known as habitually probing generalist.

I feel that that far better represents me and how I’d like to be known. For now, Off the Mark will be my tagline.

In the interest of disclosure, I feel that the primary reason for this change is that which I stated above—Off the Mark carries certain negative connotations which I no longer am willing to ignore and habitually probing generalist better represents the external face I want to present. Secondarily, though, I cannot deny that the phrase “off the mark” is heavily represented and used on the Internet. There is a greeting card company with that name (I have enjoyed giving a card or 3 to others from that company; check them out) and at least another blog or two, besides being a common phrase in its own right. “Habitually probing generalist” appears to be only used by me and a few others who have referenced my tagline. Thus, I am laying claim to it. Carole Palmer deserves a boatload of credit for it but I alone am responsible for this specific formulation.

Working toward this change I made myself a new favicon about 2 weeks ago. No longer is my favicon barely distinguishable pink flowers but is a blue background with a whitish “hpg” in it. I still need to do a little code editing so the fonts are switched for the name and tagline on the blog but that can wait. A looming physical move takes precedence.

With my blogging output over the last year a few of you might well ask “What is the point of a name change for a moribund blog?” Sadly, that is a valid question. I cannot make any promises but ….

CAS project

Friday I met with my academic advisor, Dean John Unsworth, about my CAS paper, for the first time in about 11 months. The gist of what we discussed is that things are settling down in my life (as much as possible for someone with a temporary job) and that I am ready, and looking forward, to beginning on the job of writing and defending this paper.

First, I must get physically moved across town and somewhat unpacked but then I should be able to devote far more time to it than I was willing to over the last year. The love of my life and I will live together and there will be no more of that whose apartment are we going to?, are you/am I spending the night?, blah blah. Perhaps more importantly, I will have research time once my 2nd year Visiting Professor appointment starts 16 August. This should make a major difference in my mental ability to focus on the task at hand. Also, S will be majorly busy and working many hours in September and October so I hope to use some of that time to get back in the flow of reading and writing towards a directed end.

My time over the last year has by no stretch been a waste! I have read far more broadly in a vast array of disciplines, topics and genres, which has better prepared me to think about and critique the actual use of language and communication. I was on a panel at ASIS&T last year where I spoke about Integrationism in regards to tagging. I also attended the 1st Ethics of Information Organization conference this May.

I now have an idea for a draft proposal for a presentation at the 2nd Ethics conference next year. This also forms a small but core portion of my critique of the uses of the concepts of language and communication in LIS. Thus, working towards fleshing this out will be a big help in a key premise of my argument. I might also be able to then expand on it or shift it a bit to present at ASIS&T or the SIG-CR preconference next year in 2010.

I also have an idea for a way to have interested parties work with me to compile a “listing” of theories of language and communication used in LIS and citations of works that explicitly use them, well or not. On this head, though, I am first doing a bit of research to seed the list and to determine what might be the best tool to use for a (small, I assume) group to manage it while making it publicly available. Stay tuned.

… and this means what for the blog?

Well, I hope that I will blogging much of what I get up to. I will need to reread many things and refresh my memory of what they say. Summarizing these for the blog is a possibility, as is comparing and contrasting ideas. Bouncing ideas and/or draft paragraphs/sections of my paper or my conference presentation ideas off of my readers are distinct possibilities, too.

No promises. But. I hope that I can claim that—for the near future, at least—I am back.

Sing a song with a friend
Change the shape that I’m in,
And get back in the game,
And start playin’ again

John Prine. Clay Pigeons.

He’s incommunicado
No comment to make
He’s saying nothing at all

Yeah but in the communique
You know he’s gonna come clean
…

[Communique - Dire Straits]

Seems I don’t have much to say anymore. We’ve all read of the death of blogging. The move to Friendfeed and Twitter. XYZ.

None of those are entirely true. I have plenty to say and a fair bit to talk about. [I have a whole series of posts about the Ethics of Info Org conference I went to at the end of May planned out and started]. But there are other things that I have chosen to give my time to.

Work

Recently I was engaged in a project at work which involved us processing about 41,000 volumes of serials and monographic series out to our Oak Street remote storage facility in a projected 10-week period this summer. We managed to finish the project in 6 weeks.

I was the primary cataloger, 95%+ of the time. As in I was 95% of total cataloger time spent on it. This means that conservatively I had “critical eyes” on 1000 bib records a week.

I lasted just over 5 weeks before my mind shut down on me. Pretty much literally. Luckily El Diablo was there to step in and finish the project. By the time a couple days passed and I was ready to return they had wrapped it all up.

In other work-related news, I have accepted an offer for another year as a Visiting Serials Cataloger and Visiting Assistant Professor of Library Administration. Yay for knowing I’ll have a job in the near future. The current contract was over 15 August so this is none too soon. [Hopefully the Trustee's approval will be routine.]

Moving

I have met the woman I was destined to spend my life with. She is my heart and soul and shortly I will no longer live alone.

At the end of the work day, I go home to do every thing that our project team was doing. I am pulling, inventorying, checking, boxing and slinging the boxes for our move across town. “Life is grand.”

Well, life was grand. A wrinkle has been added which complicates things, to say the least. I am kind of stressing right now but will recover. I’d put my moving skills up against anyone’s. Sad as that may be.

In this department life can throw whatever it wants at me. I care little, even if it stresses me in the short-term. I am shortly moving in with the woman who I have chosen to give my time (and life) to. I shall give her as much of it as is required.

Another wrinkle has arisen in the time it has taken me to finish this post. If it appears somewhat disjointed I apologize as the several weeks it has taken has required several rewrites and as many removals and additions.

New Employee Recognition Day

A couple weeks back the library held its annual New Employee Recognition Day. Seeing as I was hired within the last year I was—like all others hired in the last year—introduced by the Dean. Based on the state of this humble blog in the past year I was horrified that the vast majority of my intro came from my About page here. My being named one of “The LISNews 10 Blogs to Read on 2008” was trotted out as I shrank in embarrassment. At least it made me realize I need to update that page.

The blog

Speaking of the blog, there are going to be a few changes around here soon. Does that mean I may finally start posting again? I can’t really say.

One of my first thoughts upon hearing the Dean tell everyone assembled at NERD (Oops, I doubt they mean for that acronym to be used) was to simply kill it entirely. Oh, yes. I did seriously consider that.

But as several other libloggers have written recently, I like having this space in case I do want to share and get around to doing so. It’s nice to know it is here waiting on me.

Was having trouble getting in to my own domain recently for assorted reasons but finally got it figured out. Thus, I just upgraded from WordPress 2.7 to 2.8.1 with one click (after backing up). Plugin upgrades also only required one click each. Wow! Can I just say “Wow!”

Anyway. Enough of this blather for now. It is time to kill this thing and just post it. With any luck anyone still out there will be hearing from me again soon.

Back in March I wrote a longish post about “My personal journey into ebooks.” Things have since changed so I feel that I ought to add some commentary to those thoughts.

As a caveat, these comments only pertain to me, at least as intended. They may apply to you as an individual reader but I do not intend for them to be generalized.

I have for all intents and purposes currently quit reading ebooks on my Touch. None of the issues I mentioned in the original post are the issue though. Simply put …

I came to the realization that the circumstances in which I was using my Touch to read books were not good circumstances in which to do so. Other than as stated in my previous post, and to no greater extent, there are no interface issues that have brought about this change.

Context: I was reading books on my Touch during bus rides to and from campus, waiting for the bus at the end of the day, and at lunch. My bus rides are about 10 minutes long and my average and usual bus wait is 10 minutes.

Trying to read while watching for the correct bus or the correct stop does not make for quality reading. Perhaps if I had a longer bus ride reading on the bus would be better. But I don’t. So I quit.

[I have also not been reading much in the way of print lately either but for other reasons. I am trying to get back in the swing since between all the other things I have going on I do need to "relax" and sustained reading is good for that.]

Today I did start reading from my Touch again at lunch (The Importance of Being Earnest). Lunch is a longer sustained period than the bus waiting/riding and it is easier to choose my stopping point so retention is greatly improved. Also, truth be told, it is easier to read from the Touch at lunch than a print book. It lays flat and stays open with no problems. If I need to eat with my fingers it becomes a small problem but I eat at a place where I need a fork (or chopsticks) most days of the week.

I have no aversion to reading on my Touch at home if need be and I will on occasion. But then I also have several 100s of print books here that need reading (A very conservative estimate).

I did read several more books than those mentioned in my earlier post before I quit using the Touch to do so. Assuming I can find more sources of free books for the Touch I imagine I will continue to use it for reading at times where I can have a semi-sustained reading experience but it is inconvenient to carry a print book.

So I guess the main point is I realized that the situations in which I was trying to read ebooks were generally not good for reading for me.  It was the situations and not ebooks or the Touch itself that caused me to quit. I will just have to see where it goes from here.

I am at The Ethics of Information Organization conference in Milwaukee for the next two days and I am really looking forward to the presentations.

Hopefully I will find time to blog about this soon; unlike so many other things. With any luck the conference site will have wireless available. It is in the public library. If so, and I can find power, then I may be tweeting it with the hash tag #EIO09. Update: Seems they want #IOETHICS

More importantly, though, I hope to learn a lot and be given lots to think about.